The following is an edited and abbreviated transcript of Edward Kennedy's statement following the Chappaquiddick controversy:

There is no truth, no truth whatever, to the widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct that have been leveled at my behavior and hers regarding that evening. There has never been a private relationship between us of any kind. I know of nothing in Mary Jo's conduct on that or any other occasion  and the same is true of the other girls at that party  that would lend any substance to such ugly speculation about their character.

Nor was I driving under the influence of liquor.

Little over one mile away, the car that I was driving on an unlit road went off a narrow bridge which had no guard rails and was built on a left angle to the road. The car overturned in a deep pond and immediately filled with water. I remember thinking as the cold water rushed in around my head that I was for certain drowning. Then water entered my lungs and I actual felt the sensation of drowning. But somehow I struggled to the surface alive.

I made immediate and repeated efforts to save Mary Jo by diving into the strong and murky current, but succeeded only in increasing my state of utter exhaustion and alarm. My conduct and conversations during the next several hours, to the extent that I can remember them, make no sense to me at all.

Although my doctors informed me that I suffered a cerebral concussion, as well as shock, I do not seek to escape responsibility for my actions by placing the blame either on the physical and emotional trauma brought on by the accident, or on anyone else. I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately.

Instead of looking directly for a telephone after lying exhausted in the grass for an undetermined time, I walked back to the cottage where the party was being held and requested the help of two friends, my cousin, Joseph Gargan and Phil Markham, and directed them to return immediately to the scene with me  this was sometime after midnight  in order to undertake a new effort to dive down and locate Miss Kopechne. Their strenuous efforts, undertaken at some risk to their own lives, also proved futile.

All kinds of scrambled thoughts  all of them confused, some of them irrational, many of them which I cannot recall, and some of which I would not have seriously entertained under normal circumstances  went through my mind during this period. They were reflected in the various inexplicable, inconsistent, and inconclusive things I said and did, including such questions as whether the girl might still be alive somewhere out of that immediate area, whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys, whether there was some justifiable reason for me to doubt what had happened and to delay my report, whether somehow the awful weight of this incredible incident might in some way pass from my shoulders. I was overcome, I'm frank to say, by a jumble of emotions: grief, fear, doubt, exhaustion, panic, confusion, and shock.

Instructing Gargan and Markham not to alarm Mary Jo's friends that night, I had them take me to the ferry crossing. The ferry having shut down for the night, I suddenly jumped into the water and impulsively swam across, nearly drowning once again in the effort, and returned to my hotel about 2 a.m. and collapsed in my room.

Hey, local power and politics always prevail - it’s a shame that the locals do not have the same benefits.

Actually, he was a ghost of a man - not worthy of any respect whatsoever as a man... Now a lot of these wonderful neighbors did think he would help them financially though...and that is why he continued to be elected.

It is a shame that he is glorified by the press.. He is dead, but he will not be forgotten by many (for all the wrong reasons).

Back in the early 1970s there was an Olympic downhill skier turned fashion model named Suzy Chaffee. She was the star of a ChapStick add campaign where in every add she declared she was changing her name to Suzy ChapStick. Rumors which she denied had her romantically linked to Teddy Kennedy.

In about the first season of Saturday Night Live, a “Weekend Update” bit reported that she was dating Teddy Kennedy and changing her name to Suzy Chappaquiddick. This was back in the old days when people could make fun of liberals.

13
posted on 08/26/2009 8:23:10 PM PDT
by Hillarys Gate Cult
(The man who said "there's no such thing as a stupid question" has never talked to Helen Thomas.)

I walked back to the cottage where the party was being held and requested the help of two friends, my cousin, Joseph Gargan and Phil Markham, and directed them to return immediately to the scene with me  this was sometime after midnight  in order to undertake a new effort to dive down and locate Miss Kopechne.

So Mr Government himself nor his "friends" every thought to call for the police or rescue services during those critical hours.

Bald-faced LIAR and MURDERER.

16
posted on 08/26/2009 8:27:53 PM PDT
by A message
(3 years 4 months 3 weeks 3 days until Jim Thompson is President)

Hardly a spontaneous utterance, particularly from somebody as dumb and inarticulate (when speaking without a prepared script) as Swimmer. This was clearly the result of one or more all-nighters among the Kennedy Family PR Retainers. That has been a pretty good job over the years — the Family needs this kind of PR with alarming regularity.

There is no truth, no truth whatever, to the widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct that have been leveled at my behavior and hers regarding that evening. There has never been a private relationship between us of any kind. I know of nothing in Mary Jo's conduct on that or any other occasion  and the same is true of the other girls at that party  that would lend any substance to such ugly speculation about their character.

So many lies! But I'm under a 24 hours rule not to criticize Kennedy. So I'll come back tomorrow to post my comments.

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